Wednesday, March 24, 2021
A4
OPINION
VOICE of the CHIEFTAIN
Child care
recovery
solutions
R
ural Oregon is facing a difficult post-
COVID economic recovery. The
$1.9 trillion federal coronavirus relief
package will undoubtedly help, but with-
out addressing some long-standing barriers
to economic development, we will not grow
and thrive.
The lack of child care is one of those bar-
riers. We live in a child care desert, where the
number of available slots is a fraction of the
need.
Without adequate and affordable child
care options for children younger than age 5,
a laundry list of problems arises:
• Parents (women, mostly) who want to
work or attend school may need to drop out
of the workforce or college, harming their
family’s long-term economic future.
• Employers trying to recruit and retain
employees have limited options, as potential
workers are not available.
• A “brain drain” ensues, as professionals
leave rural Oregon to pursue their careers in
areas with more child care options.
• Rural school districts suffer from dimin-
ishing student enrollment year after year, as
young families move away.
• When there are few preschool options,
many 5-year-olds are not ready to learn when
they start kindergarten, which undermines
their chances of future academic success.
A strong child care system is needed to
solve these problems.
The Ford Family Foundation’s recent
report, “Child Care in Rural Oregon,” charts
a path to improve the quantity and quality
of child care. Their five recommendations
should be quickly enacted.
Their first recommendation is for the
Oregon Department of Human Services to
use data from surveys of child care provid-
ers across the state to accurately model the
actual costs of providing child care, to cal-
culate reimbursement rates that are fair
across the state and don’t put rural areas at a
disadvantage.
Second, do away with the state’s cur-
rent system of paying more for child care in
urban areas than is paid in rural areas, and
permanently waive or significantly lower the
copayments for low-income families who
receive child-care assistance.
Third, recognize that both home-based
child care providers and child care centers
need consistent and reliable funding. They
need to receive payments based on a child’s
enrollment rather than their daily attendance.
Fourth, launch a statewide system to link
child care provider networks so that admin-
istrative services such as bookkeeping and
payroll can be shared by home-based child
care and child-care centers across the state,
lowering costs for all.
Fifth, make changes in Oregon’s child
care regulations to allow small child care
centers to be located in nonresidential set-
tings, so they can be licensed as “Certified
Family Child Care.” This would allow for
mixed-age groups of up to 16 children in
“microcenters” located in schools and other
existing buildings.
These steps don’t solve the underlying
problem causing the shortage of child care:
This care is expensive to provide because
of the high caregiver-to-child ratios needed
for the safety of very young children, and is
not subsidized by the government except for
very low-income families. The brunt of the
cost of child care is primarily borne by fami-
lies. For many families, child care costs more
than their mortgage, and can be as high as
college tuition.
Ultimately, we as a nation need to face the
fact that a child’s education does not start in
kindergarten. It starts at birth, so the more
tax dollars we spend on high-quality child
care and education, the less we will spend on
remedial services and social welfare systems,
and the better off we will be in the long run.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Understanding legislation
takes effort
Maybe you say, “The government is
making too many regulations that inter-
fere with running my business the way
I want.” But really, who makes those
decisions?
First, we voters vote for the politicians
who we believe will work for us. We con-
tribute to their campaign funds and write
to the winners. At the same time, corpo-
rations and organizations also contrib-
ute campaign funds; however, with their
money, they can hire lobbyists to influence
legislation for their benefit. (This is what
“Citizens United” is about.)
Much of the time, the lobbyists con-
struct bills and hand them to the legislators
who submit them for the decision process.
Do you think the lobbyists are promoting
and writing legislation that benefits every-
one? No, they propose and write legisla-
tion to benefit their employers. Do these
employers and lobbyists stop to think
about the effect their legislation will have
on others? Who will benefit if their bill is
put into law? Who will be hurt?
What about the bureaucrats, those
who work for the government and do
the “grunt work” to enable the decisions
made by the politicians? Do they make
too many decisions? For whom do they
make decisions? My experience as a for-
mer state bureaucrat is that my job was to
do what the politicians assigned me to do.
Almost every assignment was unpopular
with various segments of the population
because people have differing needs and
expectations.
My advice to anyone who is unhappy
with a regulation is to find out who influ-
enced the passing of the bill that included
the problem regulation, who it bene-
fits, and why was the regulation included
in the implementation of the legislation.
What is your representative’s position?
Did you follow the legislation, and did
you inform your representative of your
point of view? And why did you vote for
or against that representative, and did you
vote? So you see, it all circles back to the
responsible parties — the voters.
Being a responsible citizen is not easy.
Evelyn Swart
Joseph
Leave partisan politics out
of redistricting
In 2019, Sen. Michael Dembrow made
the following remarks about the GOP
walkout protesting cap and trade: “We
know that the voters want us to be cre-
ating this program. Every legislator that
was in a contested race in 2018 ran on
this issue. The governor ran on this issue.
We picked up seats in both chambers in
part over this issue.”
EDITORIALS: Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Wallowa County Chieftain
editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opin-
ions of the authors and not necessarily that of the Wallowa County Chieftain.
LETTERS: The Wallowa County Chieftain welcomes original letters of 400 words or
less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our
website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns
Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884
Member Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association
Published every Wednesday by: EO Media Group
General manager, Jennifer Cooney, jcooney@wallowa.com
VOLUME 134
USPS No. 665-100
P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828
Office: 209 NW First St., Enterprise, Ore.
Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921
Contents copyright © 2021. All rights reserved.
Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
In 2018, Democrats won 38 House
seats and 11 Senate seats. In 40 House
seats, Democrats had a voter-registra-
tion advantage over Republicans at an
average of 9,357.13, while Republicans
had a voter registration advantage in just
20 House seats at an average of 5,160.5.
Fourteen House seats had a Democratic
voter registration advantage greater
than 10,000, versus just one House Dis-
trict with a Republican voter registration
advantage that size. House District 43 had
a Democratic advantage of 31,000.
Decades of partisan redistricting cre-
ated a system where the majority party
picks and chooses voters. Oregon House
Speaker Tina Kotek and Senate Presi-
dent Peter Courtney have used the power
of their office to deny nonpartisan redis-
tricting proposals. Oregonians deserve a
system that allows voters, not parties, to
choose the candidates who best represent
their communities.
While the authority to draw district
maps remains with the Legislature, leg-
islators must look beyond their electoral
interests and ensure all possible districts
are equally divided between Republicans,
Democrats and Independents. Voter reg-
istration advantages should be in the doz-
ens, not tens of thousands. This is the
only road forward to unity and honest
policymaking.
Alex McHaddad
La Grande
about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private
citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a
daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters
will not be published.
SEND LETTERS TO: editor@wallowa.com, or via mail to Wallowa County Chieftain,
209 NW 1st St. Enterprise, OR 97828
Periodical Postage Paid at Enterprise and additional mailing offices
Subscription rates (includes online access)
Annually
Monthly (autopay)
Subscriptions must be paid prior to delivery
1 Year
$51.00
$4.25
Editor, Ronald Bond, rbond@wallowa.com
Reporter, Bill Bradshaw, bbradshaw@wallowa.com
Multimedia Journalist, Alex Wittwer, awittwer@eomediagroup.com
Advertising Assistant, Cheryl Jenkins, cjenkins@wallowa.com
• • •
To submit news tips and press releases, call 541-426-4567
or email editor@wallowa.com
See the Wallowa County
Chieftain on the Internet
Wallowa.com
facebook.com/Wallowa
twitter.com/wcchieftain
POSTMASTER:
Send address changes to
Wallowa County Chieftain
P.O. Box 338
Enterprise, OR 97828